National Waste Data System
System Summaries –
National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting
Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water,
Population and Communities
December 2012
Report preparation
Authors:
Jerastin Dubash
Associate
Net Balance
Rebecca Cain
Senior Associate
Net Balance
Project Manager:
Guy Edgar
Associate Director
Net Balance
Project Director:
Robyn Leeson
Director
Net Balance
Status:
Final
Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities
National Waste Data System
December 2012
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The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect those of the Australian Government or the Minister for Sustainability,
Environment, Water, Population and Communities.
While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that the contents of this publication
are factually correct, the Commonwealth does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or
completeness of the contents, and shall not be liable for any loss or damage that may be
occasioned directly or indirectly through the use of, or reliance on, the contents of this
publication.
Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................... 1
Background...................................................................................................................... 1
Purpose............................................................................................................................ 1
NGERS/OSCAR system ................................................................................................ 2
Description ...................................................................................................................... 2
History and development of use ..................................................................................... 2
Key objectives and design attributes .............................................................................. 3
Data system structure, architecture and business requirements ................................... 4
Supportive legislation ...................................................................................................... 6
Roles and responsibilities of system operators............................................................... 7
Costs associated with system operation and maintenance ............................................ 7
Limitations ................................................................................................................. 8
Introduction
Background
A new National Waste Policy: Less Waste, More Resources (the Policy) was agreed upon by
Australia’s environment ministers in November 2009. The Policy includes 16 strategies that will be
implemented over ten years. Strategy 16 covers the design and development of an online,
accessible and up-to-date National Waste Data System (NWDS) for Australia, to support a periodic
(three-yearly) National Waste Report.
Purpose
There are a number of Australian government models in place that capture environmental data,
including waste data. It is prudent to review these systems to identify any alignment with the
objectives of the NWDS and to capture learnings from the development and management of these
systems. The three systems being reviewed are:

The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme (NGERS); comprising the Online
System for Comprehensive Activity Reporting (OSCAR) and the NGER Disclosure Tool (NDT), but
with replacement systems under development for release in 2013

The National Pollutant Inventory (NPI)

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ approaches to, and systems for, waste and recycling data.
The review consisted of desktop research, a system walk-through and interviews with the system
operators.
Four reports have been produced as outputs of this project:

Three systems summaries, each profiling one of the systems listed above (including this report)

An integration opportunities report - A concise, non-technical report for a broad stakeholder
audience covering all three Australian Government data systems.
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NGERS/OSCAR system
Description
The Online System for Comprehensive Activity Reporting (OSCAR) is a web-based data collection
tool to assist organisations in recording energy and greenhouse gas data. Collected data is then
made available to Australian, state and territory government agencies via an associated web-based
system – the NGER Disclosure Tool (NDT).
The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 (the NGER Act) places registration and
reporting obligations on corporations that exceed energy and greenhouse thresholds for their
corporations as a whole or for individual facilities under their control. As of 1 December 2011,
812 corporations had registered. These corporations include manufacturers, universities, mining
and energy companies and local governments1.
OSCAR is the reporting tool that enables corporations to fulfil the reporting obligations prescribed
by the NGER Act.
Data on waste that is submitted via OSCAR includes quantity of waste disposed to landfill and the
source sector for the waste – municipal, commercial and industrial, or construction and demolition
and the production of energy from waste.
History and development of use
The Australian Government is committed to ensuring Australia meets its responsibilities in facing
the global challenge of climate change. This includes a comprehensive approach to:

reduce emissions in Australia in the short and long term

work with the international community to develop a global response that is effective and fair

prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change.
As part of these responsibilities, the Australian Government introduced the NGER Act which
introduced a national framework for the reporting and dissemination of information about
greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas projects, and energy use and greenhouse gas
production by corporations (the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme or NGERS).
The Government committed to providing a reporting tool to assist corporations in meeting their
annual reporting obligations, and OSCAR was developed.
With the introduction of government policy and initiatives including the Council of Australian
Governments (COAG) streamlining agenda, NGERS and a carbon pricing mechanism,
1
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/national-greenhouse-energy-reporting/~/media/publications/greenhousereport/national-greenhouse-energy-register-pdf.pdf
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it is important that the government has a cost-effective, flexible reporting platform to meet
changing needs. It has been determined that OSCAR and NDT cannot meet these requirements in
the medium to long term, and so they are expected to be replaced in 2013.
OSCAR and NDT have been under constant development for most of their service lives, being
continually modified to meet emerging requirements. Constant system changes within tight
timeframes have created some underlying architectural issues, making further modification and
maintenance costly.
Prior to 2 April 2012, the NGER Act and its supporting systems were administered by the
Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE). Since that time, they have been
administered by the Clean Energy Regulator (CER).
Key objectives and design attributes
The objectives of the NGER Act, the driver for the establishment of OSCAR and NDT, are to:

implement a carbon pricing mechanism

inform government policy and the public

meet Australia’s international reporting obligations

assist Australian, state and territory governments programs and activities

avoid the duplication of similar reporting requirements in the states and territories.
OSCAR supports ten Government reporting programs. The required data set varies between
programs, however, they can be broadly categorised into three types:

NGERS – the NGER Act creates an obligation for the Australian Government to publish
greenhouse emissions and energy consumption data for those corporations that exceed the
corporate and facility emissions thresholds stated in the Act.

Energy Efficiency Opportunities (EEO) - administered by the Australian Government
Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, covers mandatory identification and reporting
of industry energy efficiency opportunities that can be implemented by industry. Companies
that report under the EEO are a subset of those that report under NGERS (the energy
consumption threshold for EEO is higher than for NGERS) and the program utilises NGER data
to avoid data duplication and unnecessary reporting by industry.

Government Programs - these programs gather data about Australian, state and territory
government operations including energy, greenhouse emissions, greenhouse reduction actions,
performance, and some waste data. A separate reporting program exists for each jurisdiction,
each with its own department (not the CER) assigned to provide administration. Government
departments within each program submit this data via OSCAR. The Australian Government
reporting program is called the Government Greenhouse Energy Reporting program (GGER),
and is administered by DCCEE. It publishes data annually on energy efficiency in Australian
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government operations.
Of the ten programs supported by OSCAR, NDT is only used by the NGERS program.
Data system structure, architecture and business requirements
System structure
OSCAR includes:

an online registration tool for corporations to apply to be registered – basic data entry screens
and report functionality to print a registration application

discreet data entry screens that guide reporters to enter greenhouse and energy data, higher
order method emissions factors, corporate structure details and other matters to be identified
as required by the legislation

underlying calculation tables for each reporting period to calculate emissions totals across the
corporate group

underlying reference data tables for standard factors and data that is linked to data entry and
calculation tables

report modules to enable summary reports, and annual report templates where data is
populated from data entry screens and underlying calculations

validation processes to improve data quality

separate reporting periods so that each year has unique emissions factors, calculations, and
report templates to align with any changes in the underlying legislation

business process management screens for registration and report management administration.
NDT includes:

a number of reporting databases which present content and reports using Microsoft Reporting
Services.
The OSCAR and NDT system structure is presented in Figure 1.
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• Based around a small number of databases running on Microsoft SQL
Server 2008.
System
Infrastructure • Some small custom-built background processing functions are also
present in the environment.
OSCAR & NDT
Online web
interface
OSCAR
Reporting
NDT
• Allows year round data entry
• Each regulated or participating entity is required to submit a report
annually, which is created through the system.
• Front-end is based on Microsoft technology including IIS and .Net.
• Data is replicated to a number of reporting databases which present
content and reports using Microsoft Reporting Services.
• Microsoft Integration Services are utilised for data transfer and
transformation for some NGER specific reporting capablities.
Figure 1: OSCAR and NDT system structure
OSCAR and NDT operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but are only supported during AEST
business hours. The goal of the operators has been that OSCAR and NDT will be available 98.5% of
this time, although this is not formalised.
Access and security requirements
There are strict provisions in the NGER Act about which government agencies can access NGER
data, and what data they can access. The main data users are:





DCCEE
Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism (ABARE and Energy Efficiency Opportunities
program)
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (DSEWPaC)
All state and territory governments
Monitoring user access, however, is only part of maintaining the confidentiality of the NGER data.
Figure 2 represents how data security levels are maintained through OSCAR and NDT system
functionality in accordance with ‘unclassified-sensitive’ security obligations.
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Data users
• Required to
handle data as
'unclassifiedsensitive'
Interfaces and
interactions
• Required to meet
appropriate
security level
OSCAR & NDT
system data
maintained
'unclassifiedsensitive'
and protected
Government
user access
• Personnel required
to have security
clearance to
'Protected' level
Figure 2: Data security maintenance for the OSCAR & NDT systems
The addition of a business platform
A contracted software developer and external system host have been utilised to support, maintain
and further develop OSCAR and NDT to meet changing needs. The CER is developing new systems
to replace OSCAR and NDT, at this stage for the NGERS program only, for release in 2013. These will
provide enhanced capability to existing programs and enable new programs to be supported and
become usable more quickly. The replacement systems will also provide improved flexibility,
automation and integration with other systems. Overall, this will allow for more collaboration and
data sharing between agencies at the Australian, state and territory levels, and will make the
system more cost-effective and able to meet business needs. Any discussion or planning around
interfacing or integration with CER systems, such as by the National Waste Data System, should
consider the CER’s transition to these new systems.
Supportive legislation
The NGER Act places registration and reporting obligations on controlling corporations that exceed
specific energy and greenhouse thresholds for the corporate group or for individual facilities.
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Roles and responsibilities of system operators
Roles are responsibilities of the system operators and data providers are provided in Figure 3.
CER
• responsible for administering the NGER Act.
• committed to provide corporations with tools each year (eg OSCAR), to assist corporations to meet their
reporting obligations
• publishes selected data annually, in accordance with legislative obligations.
• required to disclose the full data set to specified Commonwealth agencies, and only facility data that is
relevant to a jurisdiction to all State & Territory governments.
CER's Delivery Division
CER's Regulatory Division
• drives major change and capability
delivery strategy.
• manage the NGERS user community user support, data management,
disclosure and usage.
• manage minor system configuration
changes.
Australian, state and territory
Government agencies
• strict obligations to maintain
adequate security of the data
CER Application Development
Services Section
• essentially responsible for system
availability and performance
(although outsourced).
Applications vendor
Hosting provider
• provide application support and
miantenance, and undertake
application development
• responsible for implementing physical
and network security,
communications, operating system
and server performance, including
connections to other systems as
required.
Corporations
Data coordinator
Non-NGERS reporting programs
• once registered, are provided access
to OSCAR for their 'trigger year' to
begin reporting.
• primary contact at a registered
corporation who is responsible for
controlling user access for their
corporate group, and what data is
entered.
• must protect their login details.
• manage their own user communities user support, data management,
disclosure and usage.
• manage minor system configuration
changes.
Figure 3: Roles and responsibilities
Costs associated with system operation and maintenance


System hosting costs are significant but are in line with standard industry hosting costs for
systems of this nature.
Development costs have been previously high, due to the system complexity of OSCAR and
NDT that has evolved over many years and the resulting misalignment of system architecture
for current business purposes. Replacement systems being released in 2013 are intended to
address this.
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Limitations
Net Balance Management Group Pty Ltd (Net Balance) has prepared this report in accordance with
the usual care and thoroughness of the consulting profession. This report has been prepared for
use by DSEWPaC, and only those third parties who have been authorised in writing by Net Balance.
The Report is based on generally accepted practices and standards at the time it was prepared. No
other warranty, expressed or implied, is made as to the professional advice included in this report.
It is prepared in accordance with the scope of work and for the purpose outlined in the project
brief. The methodology adopted and sources of information used by Net Balance are outlined in
this report.
This report was initially prepared in March and April 2011, and updated in November and
December 2012 to reflect subsequent changes. It is based on the conditions encountered and
information reviewed at the time of preparation. Net Balance disclaims responsibility for any
changes that may have occurred after this time.
This report should be read in full. No responsibility is accepted for use of any part of this report in
any other context or for any other purpose or by third parties. This report does not purport to give
legal advice. Legal advice can only be given by qualified legal practitioners.
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